Weapons-of-Choice for Identity Crimes
Joshua Mannings, Samuel Olatunbosun, Mary Ann Hoppa · 2018
Over the past decade, formal and anecdotal reports claim that pirated software spreads malware, malware can be used to steal personal and financial information, and organized crime groups may be exploiting these activities to help carry out and finance their operations. This study looked at trends in secondary data regarding malware distribution, pirated software, data breaches and the commission of identity crimes. Analyzing authoritative data from 2013 to 2016 shows: the correlation between pirated software and the number of records exposed in data breaches is statistically insignificant; the number of data breaches cannot be used confidently to predict increases or decreases in identity crimes; so pirated software and data breaches cannot be definitively established as root causes of identity crime. The specifics of organized criminal involvement in pirated software distribution and identity crimes merits further research since those activities could only be inferred from the literature used in this study.